Automated utility meter reading system with variable bandwidth receiver

A wireless utility data communication system for automatic utility meter reading, the data communication system comprising:

• a receiver for receiving encoded utility meter data;
• and
• a signal processing facility with a mathematical transformation capability, wherein the signal processing facility is configured or programmed to:
• read the received utility meter data into a buffer;
• mathematically manipulate the buffered utility meter data;
• partition the manipulated utility meter data into segments;
• combine the segmented and partitioned utility meter data;
• and
• mathematically transform the combined utility meter data.

In a utility meter reading system having multiple utility meters wirelessly transmitting utility meter data to a wireless receiver, a combination of elements for providing an adjustable bandwidth receiver comprising:

• a step for receiving utility meter data from at least one of the multiple utility meters;
• a step for manipulating the received utility meter data;
• a step for parsing the manipulated data into segments;
• a step for combining the segmented data;
• and
• a step for performing mathematical transformation on the combined data.

A wireless automated utility meter data reading system, comprising:

• a means for receiving the utility meter data;
• a means for storing the received utility meter data;
• a means for mathematically manipulating the stored data;
• a means for partitioning the manipulated data into segments;
• a means for combining the partitioned data;
• and
• a means for mathematically transforming the combined data.

An adjustable-bandwidth utility meter data-reading system configured to process data of various lengths, from multiple ERTs (Encoder-Receiver-Transmitters) with different bandwidths, and by a fixed-length signal processing facility, the system comprising:

• an M×N input buffer, wherein M and N are integers;
• a multiplying facility for multiplying the buffer entries with a desired window function;
• an adding facility for adding the multiplied buffer data, wherein the MN-point buffer data is partitioned into M equal N-data groups and the equally positioned data points of each group are added together to make an N-data resulting group;
• and
• an N-point signal processing facility for mathematical transformation of the N-data resulting group.

An adjustable-bandwidth utility meter data-reading apparatus, comprising:

• a fixed size data input buffer that receives data from multiple ERTs (Encoder-Receiver-Transmitters) having different bandwidths;
• and
• a fixed size signal processing facility for mathematical transformation of varying length data, wherein:
• the size of the fixed size data input buffer is larger than the size of the fixed size signal processing facility;
• the data content of the fixed size data input buffer is mathematically manipulated into a data set that is the size of the signal processing facility;
• and
• the manipulated data set is processed by the signal processing facility.

An adjustable-bandwidth utility meter data-receiving apparatus configured to process data from multiple ERTs (Encoder-Receiver-Transmitters) having different bandwidths, the apparatus comprising:

• an M×N data buffer;
• a manipulating facility for mathematically manipulating buffer data;
• and
• an N-point signal processing facility for mathematical transformation of N data;